Glendale golfer Alaan advances in CIF Northern Individual Tournament

SYDNEY, Australia – South African Louis Oosthuizen fell just short of winning the Australian Open but has positioned himself as the potential spearhead for Ernie Els ahead of the Presidents Cup. Already the only player on Els’ International Team with a winning record in the biennial team competition against the U.S., Oosthuizen produced a huge eagle on the final hole at The Australian Golf Club to make local Matt Jones sweat. RELATED: Inside the International’s dominating 1998 win | Internationals hoping for South African omen Jones – a former winner of the Houston Open – ultimately survived a drama-filled trip down the par-5 18th to secure his second national championship at the course he grew up on. Oosthuizen’s eagle left him with the round of the day, a 5-under 66 and finished at 14 under. But Jones dropped in a testy 5-foot par put after going from bunker, to woodchips, to a tight lie short of the green to win by a shot. Still, Oosthuizen showed he will be a force at this week’s Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne against Tiger Woods and his formidable U.S. Team. “I used this week as preparation for next and obviously I’ll take a lot of confidence out of this and hopefully we can pull it off next week,â€� Oosthuizen said. “I’m ready. Game face is on now and I’m ready.â€� Marc Leishman was the next best member of the International Team and finished in a tie for 10th. Cameron Smith was tied for 27th and defending champion Abraham Ancer was 33rd. “We’re ready to go, and looking forward to it,â€� Leishman said. “I’m pleased with the way I drove the ball and then the way I chipped. I putted well; I just wasn’t reading the greens awesome, but off the tee and around the greens I was pretty pleased with. “If I could take that over into next week and sharpen my irons up a little bit, should be good to go. It’s been a pretty easy week this week energy-wise, so we are excited about next week and hopefully we can play well.â€� Adam Scott and C.T. Pan failed to make the cut although Els was not concerned with their form. Byeong Hun An, Joaquin Niemann, Hideki Matsuyama, Haotong Li, Adam Hadwin and Sungjae Im all rested this week. “My long-term view is long-term form. I’ve picked guys who have played well for a long term.  One week or one round is not going to change anything in my view,â€� Els said. “The guys are quality players; they’ve made great strides in making the team and I believe in them. If they have a bad round or a bad tournament, it’s not changing my view on that.â€� Jones, fellow Australian Aaron Pike and Japanese amateur Takumi Kanaya all booked spots in the 2020 Open Championship at Royal St George’s from July 16-19 as the highest three players not already exempt.

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OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. – Rory McIlroy came close to shutting down his season and eliminating his opportunity this year to become the first player to successfully defend the FedExCup. The dull ache from an inflamed rib joint had left him frustrated and concerned. Rest was an alluring option. More than the nagging pain, though, was a nagging feeling that McIlroy couldn’t shake. For each of the last eight years, he had always managed to win one event. But thus far in 2017, he has been shut out. McIlroy could manage the pain he was feeling. What he couldn’t manage was the disappointment of going through an entire calendar year without raising a trophy. “The real thing for me was I want to win,� McIlroy said Wednesday on the eve of the FedExCup Playoffs opener, THE NORTHERN TRUST. “I want to win at least once before the end of the year. I haven’t not won a tournament since the 2008 season, which was my real rookie season on the European Tour. “Even in 2013 when I struggled, I went down to Australia at the end of the year and I won – and it made the end of the year feel pretty good. I’d like to have that feeling again.� He’s guaranteed at least three more chances in the Playoffs. He begins the week 44th in points, which will safely keep him inside the top 70 players who’ll advance to the third event, the BMW Championship. He still has work to do to move inside the top 30 for the TOUR Championship, which McIlroy won last year in a playoff against Ryan Moore and Kevin Chappell. That’s the last time McIlroy has won. Since then, he’s battled a rib injury for most of 2017, and also took time off to get married. He’s made just 13 starts this season. His game seemed to be coming around after top-5 finishes at the Open Championship and the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. But in the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, a course on which he’s won twice, he was not in contention. On that Sunday, he finished the final round unsure of his immediate playing schedule due to the rib problem and what he described then as numbness in his left arm after each round. He amended that description this week to “a dull ache.� “Whenever someone hears numbness, all of a sudden, it’s like, well, that’s nerves and that’s really bad,� McIlroy said. “It wasn’t quite numbness. I didn’t probably describe it the right way.� He returned to Northern Ireland, took a few days off and then met with fitness advisor Steve McGregor. By then, the symptoms had calmed down. McIlroy explained Wednesday that his rib is healthy; the problem area is the joint that attached the rib to the vertebrae. He said the ligament has “become quite lax� and thus the joint frequently moves out of line. The more he adjusts it back in place, the longer it stays inflamed. He called it a never-ending cycle – one he hopes will end after his three-month sabbatical at the end of this year. Besides the FedExCup Playoffs, McIlroy will play the Dunhill Links Championship in October. After that, he plans to put the clubs away for six weeks before resuming practice. His next competitive event won’t be until mid-January. “It’s something that I’m going to have to address,� McIlroy said. “If I manage it over these next few weeks, I can’t do any damage to it. It’s not as if I can do anything that’s not already there. So it’s just about managing it.� As for taking three months off? “I’m excited for it,� he said. “To have three months where I can focus on myself, my health, my game and just improvement – I don’t think I’m ever going to get a chance like this in my career again where I get this opportunity to take three months to re-evaluate things.� Had the pain impacted his playing ability, he would have already ended his season. But he said it does not impact him when he’s inside the ropes. That’s why he’s looking forward to offering a proper defense of his FedExCup title. “I feel like I’m capable of giving myself a chance to win this thing,� McIlroy said. “So if you feel that way and you know you’re not going to do yourself any hard, then I think that was the right decision in the end.� A year ago, he started the FedExCup Playoffs in the 36th position. Like this year, McIlroy had not won on the PGA TOUR in 2016 (although he did win his own Irish Open during that summer). But he won at TPC Boston – next week’s venue for the Dell Technologies Championship – to vault inside the top six and give himself a realistic chance at East Lake. It was an opportunity he converted. It also was a satisfying end to his TOUR season. Perhaps he’ll use the same formula again. “Sometimes with lower expectations, you can come in and the pressure is off a little bit and you can make a run,� McIlroy said. “Feel like you’re more the hunter than the hunted. That’s how I felt last year and I got hot at the right time. “Your win two of the four, you should have a great chance of winning the entire thing. That’s the goal again the next few weeks and hopefully I can do that.�

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NORTON, Mass. – Justin Thomas added another big title to a season filled with big moments by outlasting Jordan Spieth and Marc Leishman on the back nine of the TPC Boston to win the Dell Technologies Championship. Two shots behind at the turn, Thomas surged ahead with a short birdie and a 6-foot par save while limiting the mistakes that cost his challengers. He closed with a 5-under 66 for a three-shot victory that was much tighter than the margin suggested. Spieth wasted a start that riled up the Labor Day crowd — birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie — with too many mistakes on the back nine. He fell out of a share of the lead by missing the 14th green with a 5-iron from the fairway. Needing an eagle on the par-5 18th to stay in the game, he pushed a 4-iron into a tough lie in the bunker, blasted over the green and closed with a bogey for a 67. Spieth was runner-up for the second straight week in the FedExCup Playoffs, though that was enough to move up to No. 1 in the standings with one more event before the $10 million prize is decided at the TOUR Championship. Leishman shot 30 on the front to build a two-shot lead, only for it to vanish quickly. He had to save bogey on No. 10 after an errant drive. He three-putted from long range for bogey on the 11th. He found a bunker on the 12th for a third straight bogey. And then he closed with two bogeys that only cost him money. Leishman shot 70. For the 24-year-old Thomas, his breakthrough season just keeps getting better. He won for the fifth time this season, including the PGA Championship for his first major. This one might make him a shoo-in for PGA TOUR Player of the Year unless Spieth, The Open champion, were to win the final two events for the FedEx Cup title. “We’ve just had a great year,” Thomas said. “Obviously, there are two more events to finish it off.” Thomas moves to No. 4 in the world. Top-ranked Dustin Johnson, coming off his fourth victory of the season last week on Long Island, started the final round three shots behind and was one of the few players who was never in contention. He took two to get out of a fairway bunker and made bogey on the par-5 second hole, and he closed with a 73 to finish 10 behind. Spieth was simply dynamic at the start, with no putt longer than 12 feet in going 5 under for the opening four holes to briefly take the lead. Leishman, who won at Bay Hill in March, kept stride with six birdies on the front nine to match Spieth’s 30 and take the lead. Thomas did his part to stay in the game. He could hear the crowd celebrating Spieth’s short birdie on the fourth hole, and then Thomas belted a low slider of a drive that barely cleared the deep bunker, hit into the shaggy collar and hopped onto the fringe. He holed that 30-footer for an eagle, and the race was on. Phil Mickelson birdied three of his opening four holes. He couldn’t keep pace. Neither could Jon Rahm or Paul Casey. The final round was so tight that Thomas, Spieth and Leishman were tied for the lead with seven holes to play. But then it all changed when Spieth missed the green at No. 14, did well to hit a flop shot to 15 feet and narrowly missed his par putt. Thomas steadied himself after his lone bogey on the par-3 11th. Equipped with a one-shot lead because of Spieth’s bogey, Thomas hit a sand wedge to 4 feet on the 15th for a birdie and a two-shot lead. Equally important was his pitch out of deep rough to the right of the 16th to a green that ran away from him. He managed to hit it 6 feet and twice clutched his fist when it dropped for par. Spieth grazed the edge of the cup with a 10-foot birdie attempt on the 17th, and then lost all hope with his approach into the bunker. It was the first time Spieth has finished runner-up to Thomas, his best friend in golf since they were teenagers. Kevin Chappell bogeyed his last hole and still managed to nudge Charley Hoffman by a fraction of a point to earn the 10th and final automatic spot on the U.S. team for the Presidents Cup. Stewart Cink closed with a 68 to finish 12th, more than enough for him to advance to the third FedExCup Playoff event outside Chicago for the first time in seven years. Emiliano Grillo and Rafa Cabrera Bello also moved into the top 70 to advance to the BMW Championship in two weeks.

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